Looking across the long twentieth century, this article tracks the rise and fall of one form of anti-competition regulation: the certificate of public convenience. Designed to curb “destructive competition” in certain industries, such as transportation and banking, certificate laws prevented firms from entering those industries unless they could convince regulators that they would satisfy an unmet public demand for goods or services. This history highlights how lawmakers used similar techniques in governing infrastructure and finance—two fields that are not often studied together. It also shows that state regulation both prefigured legal change at the federal level and then lagged behind it, suggesting that different dynamics have been in play at each level of governance in devising competition policy over the last century.

中文翻译：

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反竞争条例

纵观漫长的 20 世纪，本文追踪了一种反竞争监管形式的兴衰：公共便利证明。证书法旨在遏制某些行业（例如运输和银行业）的“破坏性竞争”，禁止公司进入这些行业，除非它们能够说服监管机构满足公众对商品或服务的未满足需求。这段历史凸显了立法者如何在管理基础设施和金融方面使用类似的技术——这两个领域并不经常一起研究。它还表明，州监管既预示着联邦层面的法律变化，又落后于它，这表明在上个世纪制定竞争政策的各个治理层面都发挥了不同的作用。